The widow of renowned Australian artist Brett Whiteley didn’t tell Sydney Swans chairman and investment banker Andrew Pridham he had a huge $2.5 million fake hanging on his wall because she wanted to be sure before she broke the bad news.

But when she was shown a second painting attributed to Whiteley, Orange Lavender Bay, in the back of a truck by an art dealer at her Lavender Bay home in 2009, she was adamant.